2011 MBA - 11.6" - 1.6 i5 or 1.8 i7

[JusChexin]

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Damn, this is the question. With student discount, the i7 is only 90 bucks more. But the real issue is battery life. If it takes it down 30 mins, not a big deal. But if it goes 7hours to 5 hours, that could be a deal breaker, and might stick to the i5.

That's my concern too. With the student discount it really bridges the gap and makes the upgrade worth it for power purposes, but I'm concerned about the effect of the higher processor on battery life and heat output. Grrr, waiting for reviews and those with ownership experience stories is gonna be killer!

 

[Roman2K~]

Yeah, the whole binning is more of a performance than power consumption thing.

These go hand in hand. Theoretically, an i7 clocked down to i5 levels can be powered with lower voltages. So for equal performance levels, the i7 could consume less power.

Otherwise, why would Intel sell the i5 (binned lower) at lower frequencies and most importantly for them, cheaper than the i7?

 

[kamalds]

Waiting is depressing when you want to order NOW

You sound like a fanboy.

I would wait for the benchmarks, like a sensible person who likes to spend his money wisely.

 

[mac jones]

You sound like a fanboy.

I would wait for the benchmarks, like a sensible person who likes to spend his money wisely.

Great, I like this.

impulse vs caution.....the tortoise and the hare.

BTW that story is total BS , and will damage your children

 

[KPOM]

Excuse my ignorance but how does the 1.6 i5 compare to a 2.4ghz Core2Duo is it much faster, slightly faster, the same, etc..?

Wait for benchmarks, but if the MacBook Pro benchmarks are any indication, for CPU-intensive tasks, the i5 would be noticeably faster. It can turbo boost to 2.3GHz on tasks that require only one CPU core. For software written to take advantage of multi-core processors, the i5 would be much faster, as it looks like a quad-core processor to the operating system (Intel calls this "hyperthreading").

 

[Krevnik]

Well, 15w is 15w right? How can Apple claim 5 hours battery life on both then?

The 15W is a thermal design point (TDP). You design under the assumption of that much load on the CPU. That doesn't mean that's what the CPU will actually be constantly drawing. As I state in another thread, to get the 7 hours rated on the 13", your system can only be drawing 7.14W. There's no way you can draw 15W on a single component and still make those numbers. And you'll find that the design points on a lot of components are WAY beyond what they actually draw (on average, they can still draw what they say they will, but you will notice very short battery life in this case).

These go hand in hand. Theoretically, an i7 clocked down to i5 levels can be powered with lower voltages. So for equal performance levels, the i7 could consume less power.

Otherwise, why would Intel sell the i5 (binned lower) at lower frequencies and most importantly for them, cheaper than the i7?

Yields, mainly. Yes, there are differences between the i5 and i7, but it isn't like you think. The general power vs hertz graph is the same for both. But the i7 has additional features that are friendly to virtualization, for example.

The main idea of binning is that my chips won't all wind up exactly the same. There will be variances in manufacturing. Some % will wind up exactly as I designed them, some % not so much. So by finding out what clock speeds they can support, I can sell them rated for certain speeds and provide some guarantee that they will meet what they are rated for. Chips that perform well at the higher frequencies are smaller portions of their yield compared to those that don't.

That combined with the additional i7 features create the pricing steps you see between models.

 

[bigjnyc]

Wait for benchmarks, but if the MacBook Pro benchmarks are any indication, for CPU-intensive tasks, the i5 would be noticeably faster. It can turbo boost to 2.3GHz on tasks that require only one CPU core. For software written to take advantage of multi-core processors, the i5 would be much faster, as it looks like a quad-core processor to the operating system (Intel calls this "hyperthreading").

Cool thanks for the info. I'm trying to decide whether its worth it to upgrade the processor for my girlfriend who is currently using a 13" 2.4ghz Macbook core2duo.... she definitely doesnt do anything intensive, she's a very light user so I think she will be fine..... She has tons of photos, music and videos so definitely have to spring for the 256gb SSD

 

[fa.ce]

I've just called to Apple Store online and receive this answer:
"I think there's no difference between i5 and i7 in terms of power consumptions"
Anyone with certainly answers ?

 

[Krevnik]

I've just called to Apple Store online and receive this answer:
"I think there's no difference between i5 and i7 in terms of power consumptions"
Anyone with certainly answers ?

The higher clock will mean you will likely see some noticeable difference between the i5 and i7 as you use it. Will it be huge? Nah, not really, on the order of 30 minutes or so, depending on usage. But certain forms of light usage will get similar battery life as both procs will clock themselves at the same speed to perform it, and go to sleep in the same way.

But those 30 minutes for some folks is huge.

 

[fa.ce]

The higher clock will mean you will likely see some noticeable difference between the i5 and i7 as you use it.

Assuming you simply surf the web, i7 will consume more than i5 ?
In other words the i7 higher clock runs more than i5 only on certain app or also on everyday light app ?

 

[dmunz]

What about heat?

Any guesses on fans and noise differences between the two?

TIA
DLM

 

[axu539]

I will be getting a 128 GB 1.6 GHz 11". The 1.8 is tempting, but the battery life will probably take a minor hit, and more importantly, I need my machine before Friday. As far as I know, the 0.2 GHz and 1 mb cache difference aren't going to make much of an impact for what most people will be doing on an 11" machine.

 

[kegler]

why no one talk about the recovery partition in the new mba?
it doesnt ship with the usb key anymore
isnt the recovery partition gonna eat up quite a fair abit from the limited space in SSD?

 

[TheBMill]

Hi all!

I had an 11 inch but sold it months ago in hopes of getting one of these guys. I definitely want to continue the 11 inch thing, because the form factor, to me, is really nice and I didn't mind the reduced screen size.

Anyways- I think ultimately I'll be selling my macbook pro and getting a desktop mac pro and using this new 11inch MBA as my laptop of choice. I primarily use it for writing in cafes and web surfing, etc. BUT, I also would love to have it be able to handle Final Cut 7 and Photoshop for when I need it. I can't see editing stuff in Final Cut all the time on this thing, but I would love for it to be able to render videos, etc. And my last one, was sloooow in trying to render video files.

I almost want to say the heck with it and just get an i7 with 256mb, but that's pretty pricey. 128mb was fine last time, but I think 256mb, if I'm to treat this as my main laptop, would be more suffice. $300 for the upgrade is silly, but i feel like my hands are tied there, I don't think these are upgradeable on their own, yeah?

So, I suppose it comes down to this battery drain. If it's significant enough to alter the amount of time I can have it for writing in cafes vs. how much of a speed bump it is in final cut or rendering out quicktime files, etc.

 

[axu539]

@ kegler:

why no one talk about the recovery partition in the new mba?
it doesnt ship with the usb key anymore
isnt the recovery partition gonna eat up quite a fair abit from the limited space in SSD?

I'm pretty sure the recovery partition doesn't actually include Lion itself. To reinstall Lion, it'll download from Apple servers.

@ TheBMill:
If you'd been using an 11" before, even the lowest end 11" would be an improvement for FC and Photoshop. Honestly, if you're planning on treating this as your main laptop, I think the low-end 13" would be your best solution.

Btw, I think you mean 128 GB and 256 GB.

 

[Roman2K~]

@Krevnik
Thanks for the explanations . All this makes a lot of sense.

 

[TheBMill]

@ kegler:
@ TheBMill:
If you'd been using an 11" before, even the lowest end 11" would be an improvement for FC and Photoshop. Honestly, if you're planning on treating this as your main laptop, I think the low-end 13" would be your best solution.
.

I tried the 13 inch again in Best Buy the other day, just to make sure that I didn't want to upgrade to the 13 inch this time, instead of 11. And hands down the 11inch shines for me. As someone who has to fit his laptop onto tiny tables in a cafe while drinking tea, etc. The 11 inch is perfect. I didn't miss the 2 inches of screen size. And it was light enough to pack with my other things and not even notice it.

And this is coming from a guy intent on using Scrivener on this thing, which is a text heavy, multiple window deal, but I much rather have that 11 inch size. Awesome if you love the 13 inch, more power to ya! I wish I did, because there are some options (like the SD slot) that I could use, but alas.

 

[axu539]

I tried the 13 inch again in Best Buy the other day, just to make sure that I didn't want to upgrade to the 13 inch this time, instead of 11. And hands down the 11inch shines for me. As someone who has to fit his laptop onto tiny tables in a cafe while drinking tea, etc. The 11 inch is perfect. I didn't miss the 2 inches of screen size. And it was light enough to pack with my other things and not even notice it.

And this is coming from a guy intent on using Scrivener on this thing, which is a text heavy, multiple window deal, but I much rather have that 11 inch size. Awesome if you love the 13 inch, more power to ya! I wish I did, because there are some options (like the SD slot) that I could use, but alas.

Ah, I actually prefer the 11" myself, as well, since I already have a 17" MBP as my "home base." If the 11" works for you, go for it. I will personally be picking up my 11" 128 GB 1.6 GHz machine later today (when stores open), and I do some decently heavy stuff for such a small machine (Adobe CS5, some Matlab work, etc). Those tasks were fine, but a little bit slow on my last 1.4 GHz C2D MBA, so this should be a nice improvement.

 

[da3dl3us]

Hi all!

I had an 11 inch but sold it months ago in hopes of getting one of these guys. I definitely want to continue the 11 inch thing, because the form factor, to me, is really nice and I didn't mind the reduced screen size.

Anyways- I think ultimately I'll be selling my macbook pro and getting a desktop mac pro and using this new 11inch MBA as my laptop of choice. I primarily use it for writing in cafes and web surfing, etc. BUT, I also would love to have it be able to handle Final Cut 7 and Photoshop for when I need it. I can't see editing stuff in Final Cut all the time on this thing, but I would love for it to be able to render videos, etc. And my last one, was sloooow in trying to render video files.

I almost want to say the heck with it and just get an i7 with 256mb, but that's pretty pricey. 128mb was fine last time, but I think 256mb, if I'm to treat this as my main laptop, would be more suffice. $300 for the upgrade is silly, but i feel like my hands are tied there, I don't think these are upgradeable on their own, yeah?

So, I suppose it comes down to this battery drain. If it's significant enough to alter the amount of time I can have it for writing in cafes vs. how much of a speed bump it is in final cut or rendering out quicktime files, etc.

I was initially gonna jump to buy the 256GB, but also starting to think if the extra $300 is worth it.

If I'm gonna bootcamp (just for some games), would the 128GB do the job?

 

[shiny-blanket]

i7 has on die memory controller, doesn't look like i5 does. That'll reduce memory access latency.

 

[TheBMill]

I was initially gonna jump to buy the 256GB, but also starting to think if the extra $300 is worth it.

If I'm gonna bootcamp (just for some games), would the 128GB do the job?

I can't speak to bootcamp, I remember the MBA with 128gb did okay with me, I actually had like 50gb free, BUT, if I'm to make this my laptop of choice and ditch the macbook pro (and use a desktop for editing), then I feel like having another 128gb would be really useful. Especially since i use dropbox to sync both computers and I wouldn't want to run out of space on the MBA

 

[da3dl3us]

I can't speak to bootcamp, I remember the MBA with 128gb did okay with me, I actually had like 50gb free, BUT, if I'm to make this my laptop of choice and ditch the macbook pro (and use a desktop for editing), then I feel like having another 128gb would be really useful. Especially since i use dropbox to sync both computers and I wouldn't want to run out of space on the MBA

So with your 128gb, what was the 70Gb being used towards? I'm just trying to get an idea of how much space I would use in reality, instead of just buying the 256gb, waste money and not using it to it's full potential.

 

[TheBMill]

So with your 128gb, what was the 70Gb being used towards? I'm just trying to get an idea of how much space I would use in reality, instead of just buying the 256gb, waste money and not using it to it's full potential.

I'm a filmmaker and sometimes musician, so I had garageband files, some video files, and various other bits of media. At the time, I had a free dropbox account and got it up to something like 6.6gb. But, now that I have a pro account, I could see having at least 50gb worth of media backed up amongst both computers...I think I may be talking myself into a 256gb here.

For me, I never not need more space. As an editor I have something like 5 external hard drives!

The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking I won't upgrade to i7. If I were to max everything out, with tax and all, would be really silly for an 11 inch. I think the real question is whether or not to go for that 256gb upgrade or not. If it was only a little cheaper!

 

[TheBMill]

256gb it is!

da3dl3us, I found this to be the best deciding factor for me. I just checked out the program What Size? Just to see how much space I was using on my current macbook pro and for what.

Application Support is at 47gb
Apple loops is 32gb
Applications 18gb
Plus easily 11gb of stuff for mail, system files, etc.

So, even if I just wanted to keep my applications uniform across my pending new desktop and this macbook air, I'd have to get the 256, because otherwise I'd have 0 space for files.

 

[MRU]

You sound like a fanboy.

I would wait for the benchmarks, like a sensible person who likes to spend his money wisely.

Yeah or I could actually have a sense of humor unlike some